Sunday, 29 March 2009

THIS brilliant video to some extent shows the lunacy of those in charge of running newspapers in the modern age and the human tragedy when one shuts down.Let's start examining more closely the business model of newspaper chains hungrily sucking profits from still successful titles to pay executive bonuses while laying off journalists and crying wolf about the internet.Let's look at the unsuccessful grand lies of centralised systems etc of the late 1990s and early 2000s which robbed us of cash which could have been used to ward off the current downturn.Let us talk about the groups run mostly by people from weekly newspaper advertising departments who have no inherent belief in the contribution of editorial to what the insultingly call 'the product'.Let's talk about how these groups have yet to go their staff to try and innovate in any way.Let us talk about groups that are still fundamentally talking to their communities rather than having a conversation with them.Let's look at the groups still looking to generate ad revenues from that one large print circulation rather than recognising the thousands of smaller overlapping communities the net offers us.Let's get back to thinking of our readerships as valued, breathing, human communities with stories to tell rather than as demographics or potential figures on a ledger and then maybe we will fix this without closing any more papers.